How digital marketing agencies charge, and what to ask before you sign

"What will this cost me?" is the first question every owner asks, and the one most agencies dodge until the second call. This page does not quote a price either, and here is why: no honest number exists until someone knows your goal. What it does give you is the structure of every quote you will receive, so you can tell a fair one from a trap.

Why there is no single price

Agencies price on scope, not on a rate card: how many channels, how much hands-on work, how fast, and how much risk they take on. Two quotes for "SEO" can be a few pages a month or a full content and links programme. Compare what is included, not the headline figure.

What pushes a quote up or down:

• Channels. SEO alone, or SEO plus Google Ads, Meta ads, email and WhatsApp.
• Volume of output. Ten pages or forty; five ad creatives a month or fifty.
• Reporting and calls. A monthly PDF versus a weekly call with the people doing the work.
• Speed. A launch in three weeks needs more people at once than a launch in three months.
• Risk. Whether the agency is paid for effort, or part of its fee depends on an outcome.

A number without a goal is a guess dressed as a quote. A clinic that wants more bookings in one neighbourhood and a D2C brand that wants a national launch can both ask for "digital marketing" and need entirely different work. So the right first move is to write down the result you want and what a customer is worth to you. You will use it in every model below.

Model 1: the fixed monthly retainer

You pay the same fee every month for an agreed list of work. It is simple to budget and suits ongoing work like SEO, content and social. The risk is paying for activity rather than outcome, so ask for the deliverables list and the number the work is judged against.

Good for: work that compounds over months and needs steady hands, such as SEO, content and social media. A school building its admissions pipeline over a year is a natural fit.

Watch for: a retainer is the same fee in a good month and a bad one. The incentive is to keep the client happy, which is not the same as growing their business. Vague wording such as "strategy and optimisation" with no list of what that means is the red flag.

Ask for: a written list of deliverables per month, who does each, what is reported and how often, and the one number the work is judged against.

Model 2: a percentage of ad spend

The agency takes a percentage of the budget it manages on Google or Meta. It scales with spend, which can reward raising spend rather than improving results. It works when the percentage drops as spend grows, the ad account is in your name, and you see every click bill from the platforms directly.

One fact clears up most confusion: your ad spend is paid to the platform, not to the agency. Google and Meta bill you for the clicks and impressions their auctions sell. Both describe auctions where ad quality and relevance affect what you pay, not only the size of the bid, so a skilled manager can lower the cost of each customer without raising the budget. The agency fee is separate, for the managing.

The incentive problem, said fairly: if the fee is a fixed share of spend, a larger budget means a larger fee, whether or not a larger budget helps. Most agencies on this model are not cynical, but the structure does not reward saying "spend less". A D2C brand with a good month might hear "double the budget" before it hears "fix the product page".

Guardrails worth writing down:

1. The percentage falls as spend grows.
2. The ad account is in your name, with the agency added as a user.
3. You can see platform invoices and billing yourself.
4. The agency tells you in writing when a lower budget would do.

Model 3: project or hourly fees

A one-off fee for a defined deliverable such as a website, a brand or a tracking setup. It is cleanest when the scope is clear. Costs creep when the brief is loose, so fix what counts as done, how many revisions, and who owns the files at the end.

Good for: a website build, a brand identity, a set of landing pages, or a one-time tracking setup such as the one in our guide to conversion tracking. A builder launching a new project site is a good example: the scope is a thing you can point at.

Hourly work suits small, unpredictable jobs. It is fair if you can see the hours, but it rewards slowness, so ask for a cap or an estimate with a ceiling.

Fix in the contract:

• What counts as finished, and who signs it off.
• How many rounds of revisions are included, and what a change request costs.
• Who owns the files, the code and the accounts at handover.
• What happens after launch: fixes, hosting, updates and who does them.

Model 4: fees linked to results

Some agencies charge a share of leads or revenue. It sounds fair, but the agency then decides what counts as a result, may favour easy wins, and you may pay for sales you would have got anyway. If you consider it, define the metric in your own records and cap the term.

Where we stand: BridgeE doesn't charge this way. We agree the number we're working towards before we start, and report against it every month.

The honest case for this model: it shares risk, and a business that cannot afford to pay for effort that fails may like that. The honest case against it:

• Who defines the result? If the agency's dashboard is the judge, you are trusting the party being paid.
• Easy wins. Branded searches and returning customers would have arrived anyway, but they are the cheapest results to claim.
• Distorted work. Anything slow, such as brand building or SEO foundations, gets starved because it does not pay inside the contract window.
• Lock-in. A share of future revenue can last long after the work ends.

If you still want it: define the metric in your CRM and not in the agency's report, set a start and end date, and agree what happens to the accounts and data on exit. Compare it to what you would pay for a retainer at the same scope, because a fee that looks small can be larger than it appears once the business grows.

What is not in the fee

Ad spend, software licences, stock or production costs, and sometimes the website developer are usually separate. Ask for a list of everything you will pay for outside the agency fee, and who the contracts are with. Surprises usually live in this gap.

Typical extras to ask about:

• Ad spend on Google, Meta and other platforms, billed by them.
• Software: analytics, CRM, email and WhatsApp platforms, rank tracking.
• Creative production: photography, video, voice, models.
• Developers, hosting, domains and plugins.
• Third-party fees such as call tracking numbers or lead-form tools.

Then ask whose name each contract sits in. A platform subscription in the agency's name can vanish with them. Also ask whether commitments are annual or monthly: an annual contract billed monthly is still an annual contract.

Ten questions to ask on the first call

Ask who does the work, what number the work is judged on, where reports come from, who owns the accounts, how you leave, what the first 90 days contain, and what they need from you. Good agencies answer plainly; weak ones sell certainty they cannot have.

Red flags, from Google's own guidance on hiring an SEO: promised rankings, a claimed "special relationship" with Google, no explanation of what they intend to do, and link schemes. Google also notes you are ultimately responsible for the actions of anyone you hire, and its spam policies are what a careless agency can get your site penalised under. Add two of ours: no access to the accounts your money pays for, and no named people.

When you are comparing proposals, also read how ad channels differ in Google Ads vs Meta ads, so you know what you are being asked to fund, and how Google Ads management differs from running a wider performance marketing programme. Judge on customer acquisition cost, ROAS and attribution from your own records, not on activity.